One traditional recipe
for making root beer involves cooking a syrup from molasses and
water, letting the syrup cool for three hours, combining the root
ingredients (including sassafras root, sassafras bark, and
wintergreen). Yeast was added, and the beverage was left to ferment
for 12 hours, after which it was strained and rebottled for
secondary fermentation. This recipe would usually result in a
beverage of 2% alcohol or less, although the recipe could be
modified to produce a more alcoholic beverage.